The Realtime Art Manifesto

The Realtime Art Manifesto was written in 2006, but I’ve only just read it now, and I figure that many others may have been unaware of it too.

This manifesto is about what kind of games we should be designing and building. It is very thoughtful, and written in a poetic style. Many of the statements can easily apply to areas outside of games.

There have been several game-related manifestoes over the past few years: some focus on independent development, like the Scratchware Manifesto and the Manifesto Manifesto; some are area-specific screeds, like the Turku Manifesto; there are manifestoes I don’t really feel like linking, because they are misguided and damaging, like Dogma 2001; and there are manifestoes about manifestoes, such as The Videogame Revolution I Want. But the Realtime Art Manifesto is by far my favorite. It has its heart in the right place, and it’s a deeper place than where the rest of the manifestoes reside.

The Realtime Art Manifesto is not perfect — it is at times too specific about certain kinds of games; this specificity makes the document less universal, and also too long. But I wish that more designers thought this way. All designers should read it. Here is the link again, so that you can read it.

Thanks for this, although I like Dogma 2001. It’s far from the world breaker it wanted to be, and that’s a good thing, but it has lead to some very clever things and has had a positive influence. Looking at The Class and In The Loop, we can see that a more thought-out approach to a “realistic” feeling is better, but it still set a benchmark.

Thanx 4 this inspiring link. We that dwell in the real of real time new media art need to start thinking about aesthetics, forms and fundamental ideas. I do not fully agree with the manifesto but am still glad that others in this medium still actively embrace the idea of “manifesting”. I myself – as being a German – have a strong tendency towards this type of literature 4 we have a long tradition of manifestos.
I would gladly add some text of mine, but most of them are in German, so no use doing that here. SO tnx again 4 the inspiration…